Well, here we are, wrapping up the semester in a blog. As I look back on my periodical research, it's hard to find one strand to synthesize all the articles I found. So, I started thinking about what interested me the most.
I will have to say I was able to look with new eyes at the one journal I examined toward the beginning of the semester--the Royal American Magazine. I had devoted a blog to the rhetoric I found within the March 1775 issue. To me, then, it appeared to be merely elitist. The authors positioned extolled the virtues of rest, leisure, classical reading as opposed to the detestable habit of pursuing filthy lucre. In class, Dr. Williams pointed out to me (as I feel it should have been obvious) that this was a Tory magazine, promoting upper class English values. Now, though, I look back and wonder--how did a magazine with rhetoric like this help instigate some of the anxieties men faced in pursuing publishing for money? Even if they rejected English ideals in favor of creating an American identity, there was a sense that when strict morality (an ideal both countries shared) was attached to leisure writing, it may have been even more difficult for writers in good conscience to shed some of those preconceived notions, not to mention the ideals of manhood that the Royal American Magazine espoused.
My research interests led me several times to missionary stories over the semester. I've always enjoyed missionary stories, especially because one of my favorite books is The Journals of Jim Elliot who worked as a missionary to Ecuador in the 1950s. The journal chronicles his personal growth and development much more than it does the changes that he sees in those he preaches to. What I find interesting about the Early American Missionary Narratives is the pattern that most seem to fall into of telling the change that happened within the hearts of the proselytes. Though I recognize that this is standard, the contrast really stood out to me as I read the stories. I also recognize that I'm reading these narratives through 21st century eyes, but even so, I feel that the writers so often discredit their own ethos with fantastical stories like Reverend Henry Martin's account of the "Musselman conversion" in the Christian Watchman 1829, where the convert now speaks in near flawless English for the time and can relate the entire gospel message with very detailed theological understanding. Did readers really believe these stories? Were they inspiring? I find a story about a missionary who grows and changes himself to be more revealing and inspiring than these artificial narratives. Once again, I realize I would read the narrative differently if I were in that time period. The one that made me laugh, though, and still does, was "The Power of Prayer," a story for children found in The Zion Herald 1825 in which a group of "prayer warriors" save their ship from being destroyed by the pirates they encounter. Later, after spending years in Cuba, these missionaries are approached by the same pirate leader who has been converted because of the miraculous event. (He also can speak in "perfect" English after being in America for awhile.) To me, these narratives would seem fantastic and unbelievable to children as they grew up, possibly affecting future generations' understanding of different types of missionaries. They all seem homogenous in the early American narratives. There are no tales of medical missionaries or good will ambassadors who are genuinely concerned with the physical welfare of the people and who even try to assimilate into their cultures to help them. These types of stories are lost because of the confines, it seems, of the traditional missionary narrative genre.
Well, it's been an interesting ride. Pirates and angels and all.
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